by Lizzie Lane
‘I’m going to Charlotte’s tomorrow,’ Edna said after they’d made love and kissed affectionately in its warm aftermath.
‘On a Saturday?’
‘I thought I’d take the children to the zoo afterwards.’
‘Do you want me to come?’
Edna sensed his disinclination. ‘Only if you really want to.’
‘Hmm. If it was just the zoo I would. Old Charlotte’s a good sort, but I know what it’ll be like once you and her get together – non-stop women’s talk.’
‘And you think she’s bossy,’ she said with a laugh and a tap on his chin.
‘Right, so I’ll give it a miss – if you don’t mind.’
‘I don’t mind.’
It was exactly what she’d thought he’d say which is why she’d lied. She was going to see Janet, not Charlotte. The zoo was a busy place and the animals would keep the children occupied whilst she talked to Janet and found out exactly what had happened to her and how she could help. They would meet at three o’clock. There was just one thing worrying her. Edna propped herself up on one elbow. ‘I want to ask you something.’
He kept his eyes tightly closed and pretended not to notice. ‘I’m so sleepy,’ he said in the sort of voice one of the children might use.
Edna smiled to herself. Colin was a child at times.
Just as she expected, he opened one eye. ‘What is it?’
She traced circles across his chest with her finger. ‘What do you think about secrets?’
‘You should keep them,’ he said with a yawn. His eyes snapped open. ‘What have you done?’
Edna laughed. ‘Nothing. It’s not me.’ She tried to think of the best way to put it. ‘If something happened to a member of a friend’s family and they wanted you to keep it secret, even though you thought that friend could help that person, would you still keep the secret?’
‘Yes,’ said Colin. Then he yawned again and closed his eyes.
Edna lay back on the pillow and did the same. Sleep would be a long time coming, she thought, and opened them again. Keeping Janet’s secret from Charlotte had been worrying her for days. But a secret was a secret. As far as Edna knew, she was the only person Janet had confided in. For Charlotte’s as well as Janet’s sake, she resolved to give her full support.
In no time at all Colin was snoring. Edna nudged him in the ribs.
‘Sorry,’ he said sleepily, reached out and gripped the side of the mattress. Edna obliged, got one hand into his shoulder, one under his hip and moved him onto his side. Despite having overdeveloped arm muscles, turning over wasn’t easy.
She lay awake for what seemed like hours then finally gave up trying. Being careful not to disturb Colin, she pushed back the bedclothes, swung her legs out of bed and tucked her feet into her slippers.
Light fell through the round window at the top of the stairs and lay in a distorted oval like a maladjusted mat.
She stepped into the girls’ room first. Susan was sound asleep, pink lips intermittently sucking on an equally pink thumb. Pamela was in her cot. She too was sucking on her thumb and had kicked her bedclothes down to her ankles.
Edna pulled the bedding up over her warm little body. If anyone had ever told her she’d have such adorable children she’d never have believed it. And three of them! And another on the way – hopefully. So far she’d told no one – not even Colin. She wanted to be sure.
On entering Peter’s room she found that he too had kicked off his bedclothes.
She lingered after covering him up and gently pushed his sandy hair back from his forehead. Being brought up with two girls wasn’t always easy for him. He’d asked her if she could buy him a brother. ‘Not a baby one,’ he’d ordered. ‘I’d like one that’s big enough to play football.’
Remembering what he’d said brought a lump to her throat. How could she tell him that he already had a brother who was older than him and might very well play football?
She hugged herself and stifled a sob. Even though he had a good home, well-off adoptive parents and a better life in Brazil than she could have offered in Bristol, it had never been easy to forget Sherman, her firstborn, illegitimate and given up for adoption during the war. At times like these she imagined her brown-skinned, brown-eyed little boy waking, having breakfast, going to school and saying goodbye to the people who had raised him.
Never mind, she told herself as she brushed away a tear, it’s all in the past. There’s a new age dawning and a bright future to look forward to, new houses, new jobs, new outlooks. A young queen is about to be crowned. The past is dead.
Chapter Five
The tea lady was pushing her trolley around the office and duly arrived at Charlotte’s desk.
‘With or without?’ she asked, as the piping hot liquid poured from the urn.
Charlotte was halfway through the details of a man called Lech Rostok from Danzig when something about the two men fighting suddenly hit her. She sat bolt upright. The papers she’d been reading fell from her hand.
‘Polish! They were speaking in Polish!’
Eyes that had been lowered over files in the office she shared with six others turned in her direction.
‘Just thinking aloud,’ she explained with a casual smile and a shake of her head.
‘I do that,’ said the tea lady, her hair a busy frizz around her dumpling face. ‘Now is that with or without sugar?’ she asked again. Charlotte declined. ‘I knew a Pole during the war,’ said the tea lady, a far away look in her eyes as she hugged her oversized teapot close to her chest. ‘Drunken swine!’
‘Oh dear!’
The tea lady moved on and Charlotte’s thoughts went back to the building site, the two men fighting, two others brutalizing them, and the other man wearing a double-breasted suit. The latter had watched, done nothing and said nothing, but he’d struck a chord. Where had she seen him before?
She stared at the dull cream walls as if the crazed pattern of cracking plaster was a map by which she could obtain answers to her questions. Much as she stared, it told her nothing.
The canteen at Bristol Royal Infirmary always smelt of cottage pie even when it wasn’t on the menu.
‘It’s rissoles,’ Dorothea said to Janet as she poked her fork into one of the two crisp-coated items that sat on her plate.
Janet swallowed a mouthful of cheese sandwich. ‘Of course it is. It’s Friday.’
Dorothea gobbled away, eyed the greyish bread of Janet’s sandwich, and gulped before saying, ‘That doesn’t look very appetizing.’
‘The bread tastes like cardboard and the cheese tastes like soap.’
‘So why didn’t you have the rissoles?’ asked Dorothea as she began on her second.
‘I don’t like snakes.’
Dorothea stopped chewing and looked puzzled. ‘Snakes?’
Janet kept a straight face. ‘Mrs Grey’s sister works in the kitchen and she reckons that with things still in short supply, they put any old rubbish into things like rissoles and pies.’
‘Oh my God!’ Cutlery clattered onto the plate, chair legs scraped swiftly across the floor as Dorothea sprang to her feet. Janet caught a glimpse of her face, just enough to see that she was whitewash pale, before she scooted off towards the corridor, the lavatory, and a heaving of recently bolted lunch into the china bowl.
Janet smiled to herself and murmured, ‘That’ll teach you to leave me to walk home on my own.’
A while ago, Dorothea had made the mistake of disclosing her hatred of snakes. Never tell people your secrets, thought Janet as she pushed the sandwich and tea away and got up from the table. So far she had only told two people what had happened on the night she’d walked home alone from the Odeon. One was the unsympathetic policeman, a mistake she bitterly regretted. The other was Edna. Janet trusted her not to tell anyone else.
On Saturday, at three in the afternoon, Janet entered the zoo and made her way to the monkey temple.
Complete with domed roof and pillared exterior, it h
inted at the Far East and dark jungles. It actually stood in the centre of a concrete compound viewed from steps round its perimeter and its occupants squatted in small groups over its roof, swung from its pillars or looked up the high walls with pleading eyes to the spectators looking back at them.
Janet looked at her watch. Edna was late, understandable having three children to deal with.
She looked towards the wide lawns where Rosie the Indian elephant was being led up and down by her keeper, a bevy of people sitting on a swaying howdah suspended over her back.
‘Aunty Janet!’
She turned at the sound of her name and spotted Susan running towards her, closely followed by her brother Peter who, bearing in mind the proximity of the elephant, seemed to have adopted a suitably regal canter on Trigger.
Wearing a dress of sunshine yellow that complemented her brown eyes and hair, Edna brought up the rear, with Pamela in the pushchair.
‘Sorry we’re late. We had to see Alfred first,’ said Edna breathlessly. ‘He’s a gorilla,’ she added in response to Janet’s puzzled expression. ‘Hold on a minute until I get these ice creams sorted out.’
Three Lyons Maid vanilla ice creams were unwrapped and popped into three sets of wafers. The two eldest children were given whole ones; the youngest made do with half, Edna keeping the remainder for herself.
Susan was first to get her ice cream and placed herself next to Janet. ‘What’s that monkey doing?’ she asked.
‘Eating fleas,’ said Janet.
‘Well, I prefer ice cream,’ said Susan and followed it with a lingering lick, almost as if she were trying to make the monkeys jealous.
Satisfied that the children were occupied watching the monkey colony and out of earshot, Edna looked at Janet, said nothing but merely waited for her to begin.
‘I’d been to the pictures,’ Janet began. The words came easier than she’d expected and the story poured out. Edna remained silent.
At last Janet finished all she had to say and felt better for it. Having someone listen but not comment made her realize how much she’d needed to talk about it, to get the experience out into the open.
‘Who else have you told?’ asked Edna.
‘I went to the police station.’ Janet stared at a pair of monkeys who were presently squabbling over orange peel. ‘They made me feel cheap, as though I wanted it to happen, so I ran from there. That was on the day I bumped into you.’
Edna’s expression was deadly serious. ‘The law is run by men and is biased. They’d say it was your word against his – if they should ever catch him. Would you recognize him?’
Polly shook her head. ‘Perhaps his accent, but then …’ She couldn’t be sure. Everything seemed so unfair. There seemed so little she could do.
Edna eyed the monkeys, her hands clasped and resting on the barrier. ‘You have to put it behind you.’
‘It’s not easy. I feel so second-rate.’
Edna laughed.
Janet frowned. ‘What’s so funny?’
Edna’s expression turned serious. ‘You’re such a good-looking girl. How could you possibly be second-rate?’
‘You know how it is. I’d hoped to meet the right man and have a white wedding just like any other girl.’
‘You can still do that.’
Janet’s face and voice contorted with despair. ‘How can I? You have to be a virgin to have a white wedding.’
Something in Edna’s look made her feel terribly young, terribly naive.
‘It’s not that important.’
‘It is to me! I made myself a promise a very long time ago that I would be a virgin on my wedding day.’
‘Goodness! What an odd thing to say. I was beginning to think that idea had had its day. Obviously I was wrong.’
Janet gazed at something in the distance that was there but wasn’t, a memory from when she was younger and had come home to find … She shook the experience from her mind.
‘I suppose so,’ she said softly. ‘But I had my reasons for wanting that. It doesn’t matter now. Anyway, it was different for your generation.’
Edna waited for her to continue but, realizing that she wasn’t going to explain herself, took her courage in both hands and said, ‘Not everyone is a virgin when they marry. I wasn’t.’
Janet stopped eyeing one particular monkey who was holding his hands out to the watching crowds, like a beggar asking for alms. ‘You? I can’t believe it! I mean, you’ve got Colin and three kids …’ Janet’s voice trailed away.
Edna shrugged, gave a tiny smile and shook her head so that her brown curls fell forward from the pink slides she was wearing to pin it back. ‘No one is perfect, Janet. Not even me. Not even your mother.’
Janet prickled at the last remark. No, her mother was not quite the respectable woman she pretended to be. But that too was a secret. ‘I’m not like my mother at all. That’s why I can’t tell her anything. We’re so different.’
Edna laughed.
Janet looked offended. ‘But I’m not like her.’
‘You don’t know that just yet, and believe me, I should know. I’m not like my mother, thank goodness, in fact I’m probably more like my father. But I am a mother myself so I know a good one when I see one. I think I see the best of Charlotte in you. Isn’t it true you enjoy working at the hospital? You obviously do care for other people just as she does.’
Janet studied her hands as if seeing them for the first time and not being too sure why she had fingers. ‘I love my job. I think I love my mother although at times she seems indifferent, at others surprising – even shocking.’
Edna accepted that Charlotte’s serenity could be misconstrued as indifference so did not challenge the comment. Shocking was not quite such an easily accepted description, but she chose not to react. Janet was feeling fragile. It was best to take things slowly.
She said, ‘We all experience sad and terrible times in our lives. There’s no guarantee given out at the beginning that it’s going to be perfect right until the end. I’ve certainly had my share, that’s for sure.’
‘Ah yes, Colin.’
‘Not just Colin.’
Edna studied her children. She rarely talked about her firstborn, but she thought about him a lot. Would his absence help to heal Janet’s hurt? It had to be worth using it.
‘I had a child before I married Colin. I had to give him up.’
Janet stared at her dumbstruck. ‘I didn’t know … I mean … I know you two fell out just before that Christmas you came to stay with us.’ The details were vague. She’d been at an age when her own problems had seemed far more important than those of grown-ups.
‘It wasn’t Colin’s. I had a romance, a brief affair while he was away. But I was still the same person I was before and I am now, though older of course. And Colin loved me still. It was just one of those things that happened. I have to live with it, but it changes nothing. I’m still the same and so are you. People love us for what we are, not what we’ve done or had done to us.’
Janet blinked. Edna was no longer the person she’d thought she was. It was difficult to say anything.
The silence lingered. Both women pretended to watch the children who, in turn, watched the monkeys as they dashed over the green dome of the mock Indian temple, screeching, scrabbling and fighting amongst themselves for the scattered peanuts and orange peel.
Edna remained tight-lipped until she judged the moment was right to speak. ‘You’ve had a horrible experience, Janet, but you cannot allow it to ruin your life. You have to go on. People depend on you.’
Janet swallowed at the dryness in her throat. ‘I’ll never forget that voice.’
Edna stroked Janet’s hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ear. Janet didn’t move, didn’t look at her. Her voice was soft. ‘You’ll do it. You’re strong, just like your mother.’
Janet shook her head away from Edna’s soothing fingers. ‘I am not like my mother!’
At first Edna looked take
n aback, but rallied quickly. She shrugged. ‘Hopefully I’m not like mine.’
Perhaps because her feelings were in turmoil, Janet did not want to be soothed. She suddenly snapped, ‘I’m not a child. Please don’t treat me like one.’ She untangled herself from Edna’s sympathy and walked away.
Edna watched, aching because she knew how it was to feel confused, to bear disappointment and to wonder what to do next. Things would get better. She knew they would.
‘She’ll be all right,’ she said softly to herself.
There was no time to dwell on Janet’s plight. Pamela began to squall so loudly that all the monkeys retreated to the very top of their carved concrete home.
That was uncalled for, Janet said to herself. Edna’s been good to you. She stopped beneath a weeping willow. Feathery leaves threw delicate shadows across her face.
Edna had surprised her, and not just with her confession about having had a child before marriage. On the surface she appeared almost mousy, yet it occurred to Janet that she understood the vagaries of life and dealt with them better than most people.
The next day was Coronation Eve. It was also Pamela’s birthday and she was to have a party at the semi-detached where they now lived.
Colin had suggested that everyone wear their Coronation fancy dress seeing as the little girl’s birthday was so close to the enthronement of a new monarch and that they were all going to different places on the great day itself.
Colin’s parents were dressed as John Bull and Rule Britannia – the latter costume consisted of some suitably draped bed-sheets and a cardboard helmet coloured in with child’s crayons.
The room was a riot of noise. Children and adults were getting into the swing of things, talking, singing and helping small hands handle big spoons and wobbly red jelly.
Polly’s daughter, Carol, was dressed in a Bo-Peep costume. At nine she was the eldest child there, and had her mother’s looks and the cheek to match.